Sunday, May 03, 2009

To all who follow my blog and/or book reviews, I wanted to take the opportunity to fill you in on what's been going on in my life and explain the lack of updates out here in case you weren't already aware.

Over the last year, Mike and I have been prepping and preparing to sell our house here in the Boston suburbs and move out west to the San Jose area of California. Once we get there, we'll definitely be living in a much smaller place—and possibly even living out of our RV for up to six months while we house hunt—so we've been working on a major downsizing by going through all the "stuff" we've accumulated over the past 40 years, deciding what to keep, sell, or just throw away! I can't lug all this crap out there with me. It's time to simplify and lighten the load!

Anyway, over the last six months, this effort has picked up steam and the clearing out process has taken away from much of my reading time. It's no wonder I've only managed to read 10 books so far this year! =:-o

I already have some family out there: my sister, mother, and two nieces, and we investigated neighborhoods and different areas when we were out there previously, doing a few drive-bys and such, though we weren't prepared to make an offer on any place without having sold our house here first.

So, as soon as our house here is sold, Mike, the bunnies, and I are hitting the road in the RV for a cross-country road trip, while the rest of our stuff is shipped out via movers and whatnot. We'll probably take about three weeks to travel from coast to coast, exploring many parts of the country we've never seen before. I'm actually really looking forward to that, and plan to take and share many pictures along the way. Keep an eye out for those... if I don't post them here, I'll definitely mention where they are. You can also follow me on Twitter, or friend me on Facebook, to keep tabs on me. I'm looking forward to the journey and hope you'll join me, at least virtually. ;)

On a side note, all this clean-up has obviously stirred up quite a bit of dust, aggravating the heck out of my allergies, already piqued due to the pollen. With stupid Blue Cross Blue Shield canceling coverage for my prescription allergy medication earlier this year, I've taken the opportunity to try out some all-natural remedies like Oregano Oil and Butterbur while switching my body over to Zyrtec-D. But what a pain in the ass all this is! Because the sale of over-the-counter decongestant is used in the production of crystal meth, it's sale is quantity restricted, and I'm only allowed a two-week supply at a time, presenting my license at the pharmacy in order to even get that! Grrr....

But on the good side, I've been quite happy with the Oregano Oil. It hasn't completely replaced the Zyrtec-D (or the Nasalcrom and Naphcon-A which I also take), but it has supplemented it quite nicely. I haven't had nearly as many migraines as I usually deal with this time of year, especially with all the dust and pollen coming into my system at once. Sometimes I even forget that my 12 hours are up and it's time for another pill, something I never experienced before when I used to start getting stuffy again after about 10 or 11 hours. For the Butterbur, I haven't been taking that long enough to form an opinion one way or the other yet.